Google Updates Hangouts For iOS

Google redesigns mobile messaging app, adds a handful of new features following Facebook's acquisition of rival messaging service WhatsApp.

Google on Thursday released a new update to its Hangouts app for iOS that introduces a handful of new features and a redesigned interface.

"The app has a brand new look and feel, is super easy to navigate, and includes a bunch of performance improvements," said Google's Frank Petterson in a Google+ post that announced the changes. "You can still make free voice and video calls, of course. Or send a quick photo. But we're adding a few more features we think you'll love."

More than 40 "stickers" are new to Hangouts 2.0, which are big, animated emoticons that you can add to any message. "Think of them as emoji, but even more awesome," Petterson said. The updated navigation includes tabs on the bottom to quickly archive conversations, mute messages, send videos, and access your contacts.

You can also embed a map of your current location in messages, as well as record and send short videos up to 10 seconds long to everyone in your conversation. Tapping the shutter button snaps a photo, and holding down the shutter button captures a video. You can share images from your device's camera roll, but you can't yet share prerecorded video.

The new version of Hangouts, available for download now in the App Store, is fully optimized for iPad users, Petterson said. Changes to the iPad app include picture-in-picture video calling -- which supports up to 10 simultaneous users -- and a split-pane design, which lets you both chat and scroll through your contacts or other existing Hangouts.

Hangouts 2.0 is the first major update since it added phone calls late last year, and helps it compete in an increasingly crowded mobile-messaging market.

Just last week, Facebook announced its blockbuster $19 billion acquisition of popular messaging service WhatsApp. The app, which Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted wasn't as popular in the United States as it "should be," is particularly hot in Europe, India, and Latin America, boasting more than 450 million active users.

Reports said that Google once offered upwards of $10 billion to purchase WhatsApp, though Google's Sundar Pichai denied that claim earlier this week at Mobile World Congress, calling it "simply untrue."

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Kristin Burnham currently serves as InformationWeek.com's Senior Editor, covering social media, social business, IT leadership and IT careers. Prior to joining InformationWeek in July 2013, she served in a number of roles at CIO magazine and CIO.com, most recently as senior ... View Full Bio

The pros is that Google Hangouts are rather easy to install and take into use. The cons is that, Google Hangouts seems to be more senstive to network bandwidth. If there is fluctuation in bandwidth allocation in an unstable environment, sometimes Google Hangouts cannot even stay online. I think a stable network environment is quite important for the large-scale deployment of Google Hangouts.

My company have tested Hangouts meetings with both internals and external parties. It seems that Hangouts are convenient and easy to use but is not so feature-rich. It's good to hear that Google did updates for Hangouts in iOS and we are happy to test it. However, there is no final decision yet about whether to adopt it widely in my organization.

I hear a lot of people experimenting with Hangouts -- we have here for internal and external discussions, and another company reached out to me about doing a broadcast-style discussion. But I don't have a good grip on how widely it's being used. Anyone putting Hangouts to use in their company regularly?

Any idea how many people are using the mobile Hangouts apps? The web version is nice enough but I haven't really needed to use it from a mobile phone. Is it anywhere near WhatsApp in terms of popularity?

The use of social media for a host of business purposes is rising. Indeed, social is quickly moving from cutting edge to business basic. Organizations that have so far ignored social - either because they thought it was a passing fad or just didnít have the resources to properly evaluate potential use cases and products - must start giving it serious consideration.

Social media is critical in the age of digital business. How can IT help? First, work with the marketing team to set up social networking programs on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, at minimum. Then work to put social media sentiment analytics in place to measure success.